


Broadcasting Towers

by Querulousgawks



Category: Veronica Mars (Movie 2014), Veronica Mars (TV), Veronica Mars - All Media Types
Genre: Break Up, F/M, Friendship, Joni Mitchell, Radio, getting over yourself
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:23:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Querulousgawks/pseuds/Querulousgawks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six weeks after Veronica, Nina and Don show up with a bottle of gin and make Piz an OKCupid profile. None of them really like gin, but Don says, "believe me, you're not gonna like this either," and he's right. It is gruesome. Every picture they take seems to project desperation or resentment, makes him look like a 12 year-old or a serial killer. He runs out of room on the 'music' section and leaves acres of white space every else. He is not a whole person and he's going to die alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Broadcasting Towers

 

Nina's reaction is the most comforting.

The first work day after Veronica, she grabs him by the elbow at lunch and pulls him into the break room. Ice cream in exchange for the story, the classic. He almost balks when he sees half the office in there waiting, and Ira shuffling papers innocently at the copier just outside the hall. But she's holding out Americone Dream and they're all trained to extract information (like he has any friends that aren't) so in the end he relents, tells them everything. Tries to be fair, though the scowls suggest he's failing.

"That bitch!" Nina sputters, then at his protest immediately catches herself: "No, I know. Murder case, she had a lot going on. But still, leaving your mother hanging? Who does that?'

"Californians, that's who." Rachel weighs in with the full scorn of a New England upbringing. "Hippy-dippy-drama-llama  _flakes."_

"Whole thing sounds tacky," says Don from IT, his worst condemnation, and adds slyly, "Here I thought your taste had improved after you lost the David Bowie hair."

They all jump on him for that and he raises his hands in surrender. 

"I can explain! It's just, God, I'm sure she had her reasons, but who'd leave  _all this,"_  his hands fly out, indicating Piz, the office, the Hudson, New York, "for some Pulp Fiction meets The Breakfast Club  _hellscape?"_

"There's a little Buffy, too" Piz notes disconsolately. 

"Even worse!" Don crows and Nina smacks him. 

"Buffy improves everything, and you're not helping," she says.

"She didn't flake,"  Piz says after several rounds, putting an end to the bashing and admitting it to himself at the same time, "Neptune's gotten pretty terrible and she's just... gotta go be Batman, I guess." 

Ira comes through the door, finally, looks at him through the Frames of Hipster Wisdom and says, 'You can do better than Batman, Stosh Piznarski." Everybody cheers.

He's halfway through the pint when they start to trickle out, leaving hugs and shoulder punches and the general impression that love, or possibly California, is a sinkhole and they're determined to yank him out of it. The fug of worthlessness that he's spent the weekend in has eased a little and he realizes that this is a family, here. He hadn't really noticed, through the exhilaration of getting the job and then the all-consuming rush of Veronica. He'd been spending his off hours, and more work time than he wanted to admit, chasing that mirage. Never getting any closer, even when they lived in the same 100 square feet.

He passes this observation onto Nina, and she takes the ice cream away.

"Metaphors get you cut off, that's the rule," Nina says. "Give it a month, let me know if the dancing cacti have faded from sight and we'll set you up."

He tries his puppy eyes on her, knowing it's safe. Nina's happy where she is, and he's gotten better at reading 'unavailable' by now. 

"With someone  _else_ , please, do I look like rebound material? I have a boyfriend," she says, looking pleased, and he grins. 

"Somebody equally awesome, then." They shake on it. 

 

Six weeks after Veronica, Nina and Don show up with a bottle of gin and make Piz an OKCupid profile. None of them really like gin, "but believe me, you're not gonna like this either," Don says, and he's right. It is gruesome. Every picture they take seems to project desperation or resentment, makes him look like a 12 year-old or a serial killer. He runs out of room on the 'music' section and leaves acres of white space everywhere else. He is not a whole person and he's going to die alone.

"I'm not even sure I'm ready to date," he says at fifteen-minute intervals, and each time, Don pours him another drink. 

He wakes up to an empty room, a bottle of water and a new profile picture: hands up, hair wild, grinning wide. It must have been last night. They had been arguing about Seu Jorge, Don was such a purist, and Nina's dry remarks and refusal to take a side just egged them on. And disguised her camera phone reconnaissance, apparently. He looks okay. Sort of murderously childlike, still, but happy about it.  

 

 

Three months after Veronica, Piz has bought ten internet-initiated cups of coffee, only six of which made him loathe every fiber of his being, and Nina calls in the post-breakup favor. He doesn't know who dumped who. He brings sympathy beer and the raging metal that he suspects she'll need but doesn't own, single-use breakup music, and they scream along and pass out head to foot on her lumpy futon. "Tell me your love life got better," she says sleepily, sometime in the early hours of the morning. He admits to a third date with a singer-songwriter from Vancouver, half-home and half-foreign, all exciting, and she tells him he's _come a long way, Stosh Piznarski._

 

Vancouver gets a gig on the Canadian rail system and he is regretful but not bitter, excited for her, enough without her, and six months after Veronica, Piz and Nina are sitting in the glassed-over roof garden at work. (It's got 20 degrees on the November air, lawn chairs, and rosemary bonsai because this is radio, dammit, and what's the use without a little whimsy.) The silence is comfortable, clean of secrets, and then Nina starts humming that same scrap of song again. It's her signature murmur, he's never placed it. He knows he knows it, how does it go- there are country stations, it's a little bit corny. He knows it.

"Joni  _Mitchell!"_ he shouts and she jumps, laughs at the both of them. 

"Yeah, it's, uh"

"You turn me on, right?" 

"Right. Like a radio," her laugh goes a little breathless and he can't quite catch his, either. They lean forward at exactly the same time, it's never happened to him before and he thinks he'll never stop smiling about it: they meet in the middle.   

 

**Author's Note:**

> Finally getting around to posting the lyrics that made me think of Piz and Veronica:
> 
> I come when you whistle  
> When you're loving and kind  
> But if you've got too many doubts  
> If there's no good reception for me  
> Then tune me out, 'cause honey  
> Who needs the static  
> It hurts the head  
> And you wind up cracking  
> And the day goes dismal  
> From "Breakfast Barney"  
> To the sign-off prayer  
> What a sorry face you get to wear  
> 


End file.
